The Renaissance Across Europe
When Cellini went to France, he gave impetus to the art work there. In Spain, the goldsmiths fashioned reliquaries; they wrought pendants on which they hung the emeralds new-garnered from Peru; they favored bow-shaped brooches of many jewels, the ruby vying with the emerald. The great international bankers, the Fuggers, dealt also in jewels and gems. Hans Holbein the painter, while in England, made many designs for jewels. The painter Albrecht Dürer, son of a goldsmith, fashioned a pendant for Henry VIII, with the initials E R (Enricus Rex) and three large drops.
At the same time, the sons of wealthy merchants, the young bloods of the cities, with spangled chain and jeweled dagger hilt, aped the sons of nobles. Restrictive regulations did little to curb their display. As wealth was not yet evenly distributed, not everyone could afford the genuine precious stones, and the trade in paste flourished. Milan was the center of this manufacture. In addition to the ordinary glass used for imitation gems, strass glass was developed. Invented by Josef Strasser, this mixes lead or flint with the usual vitreous substance and obtains a greater lustre. Either type of glass often had placed beneath it, cunningly hidden in the setting, a tiny bit of quicksilver or tinfoil, to make the glass reflect more light and thus seem to sparkle with its own fire.
The Renaissance no more than earlier times had skill to know the genuine from the imitation. Cellini chuckles over the fact that Henry VIII of England, bargaining with a shrewd dealer of Milan for a fine set of jewels, received what he felt was one of his best buys—in paste.
The Reformation
The ease of working in these various modes overreached itself. The designs again grew more and more elaborate. Enseignes, medallions, love tokens, memorials of saints, grew heavier than the hats, than the heads, they were intended to adorn. Rings and bracelets were fashioned to be worn outside of gloves; gloves were fashioned with slits to display bracelets and rings within. Extravagance of ornament, though a minor cause, contributed to the revulsion against the many abuses of the day that led to the two reformations. The Church itself embarked on a housecleaning campaign, which included simplicity of dress and paucity of adornment.
The seventeenth century in Europe, in the field of jewels, was one of timid venturing. The Portuguese came to the fore with delicate work, golden sprays of leaves and flowers with tiny gems, ribbons and knots of gold. In France the sévigné appeared, a simple golden bow or rosette worn on the breast, named after the Marquise de Sévigné, a noted blue-stocking and one of the greatest letter writers of her day. The sévigné, at first rather plain, was elaborated during the eighteenth century into a massive brooch, or even a gemmed stomacher. The aigrette also appeared at this time, in the form of feather-like thin movable stalks of gold tipped with tiny gems set in enamel; these vibrated as the wearer moved.
The Eighteenth Century
In the eighteenth century greater attention was again paid to adornment. The aigrette became more popular, used mainly as an ornament for the hair. Thin silver stalks like stems of wheat were banded just below the center, with a slide for fastening; the tips were set with diamonds. Some pins for the hair and some brooches were fashioned with birds or butterflies, again on thin stalks so that they flitted as the wearer walked. This vibration of the aigrette added to the sparkle of the gems. I have made a variation of this jewel, as a flower, to fit the taste of the twentieth century.
A new type of pendant earring was the girandole. This appeared in two main forms. In one, from a large circular stone at the ear lobe hung three pear-shaped pendants, sometimes amethysts or other colored stones, but usually diamonds. In the other type, from the top stone was suspended an oval hoop of gold, within which a single large diamond hung loose.